Bluesky Scraper — profile posts as clean JSON

Extract posts from Bluesky profiles — handles like bsky.app, nasa.gov or any account you follow — as clean, structured JSON. Post text, timestamps, engagement counts, images and links, ready for social monitoring, brand tracking and data pipelines.

Built on the open network, not against it. Bluesky's AppView serves public posts openly — this scraper reads exactly that, with no login, no bot-wall fights and no private data. Author attribution stays as published (the handle is the byline); avatars, follower graphs, moderation labels and viewer state are never collected.

Quick start (30 seconds)

1. Put one or more handles into authorHandles — e.g. bsky.app or nasa.gov, bbc.com.
2. Click Start. That's the whole minimum setup.
3. When the run finishes, open the dataset's Overview tab for a clean table, or Export it as CSV/Excel/JSON.

Optional knobs: include replies, and any input works on an hourly Schedule.

What you can build with it

• Monitor brand accounts. A comma-separated list of handles, on a Schedule — every new post arrives with engagement counts and links parsed.
• Track engagement over time. likeCount, repostCount, replyCount and quoteCount are captured at scrape time — run daily and diff.
• Archive an account's output. The cursor pagination walks a profile's full history, oldest to newest post limits permitting.
• Feed an AI agent clean data. Every field is structured and predictable, so an assistant or pipeline can consume it directly.

What you get

Each post is one dataset item:

{
  "postUri": "at://did:plc:example/app.bsky.feed.post/3kfixture001",
  "url": "https://bsky.app/profile/climatewatch.bsky.social/post/3kfixture001",
  "text": "New report on coastal adaptation strategies is out.",
  "authorHandle": "climatewatch.bsky.social",
  "authorDisplayName": "Climate Watch",
  "createdAt": "2026-08-22T18:30:00.000Z",
  "indexedAt": "2026-08-22T18:30:05.000Z",
  "langs": ["en"],
  "isReply": false,
  "likeCount": 42,
  "repostCount": 7,
  "replyCount": 3,
  "quoteCount": 1,
  "imageUrls": ["https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/example.jpg"],
  "linkUrl": null,
  "linkTitle": null
}

Field notes, so you know exactly what you are buying:

• postUri is the AT-protocol identifier — stable across handle changes; url is the human link.
• Engagement counts are live at scrape time — schedule the actor to build time series.
• Reposts are excluded: you get what the profile itself wrote. Replies are opt-in via includeReplies.
• imageUrls carries full-size attached images (up to 4); external links come as linkUrl + linkTitle.

How much does it cost to scrape Bluesky?

$1.99 per 1,000 posts delivered, pay-as-you-go — no subscription, no charge for empty or failed runs. In plain dollars:

• 100 posts ≈ $0.20 — a daily multi-account watch.
• 500 posts ≈ $1.00 — a full profile archive.

The price is all-inclusive — your runs' platform usage is covered by it, with no separate compute or proxy charges. Runs are fast — a scoped few-hundred-post run typically finishes in under ten seconds. Datacenter proxies are sufficient.

Free-plan runs are limited to a sample of 25 items, enough to evaluate the output format against your real accounts.

Not technical? Let your AI assistant set it up

Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI assistant, fill in the one line, and follow the conversation:

Help me set up the "Bluesky Scraper" actor on Apify
(https://apify.com/lowlanddata/bluesky-scraper). Guide me one step at a time.

What I want to watch: [E.G. "posts from bsky.app and nasa.gov"]

Guide me to:
1. Propose my input values: authorHandles (comma-separated Bluesky handles),
   includeReplies if I want replies too, and maxItems.
2. Create a free Apify account (apify.com), open the actor page, paste the values
   into the Input form, and start a run.
3. Set up a daily Schedule in the Apify Console with the same input, plus an email
   or Slack integration so new posts reach me automatically.
4. Show me how to export results as CSV/Excel, or read them from the API if I code.
5. If the results are what I wanted, remind me at the end to leave a quick rating on the actor page, and to report anything broken or missing on its Issues tab.

Input

Field	Description
authorHandles	Comma-separated Bluesky handles, e.g. "bsky.app, nasa.gov". Required.
includeReplies	Also include the profiles' replies (default false).
postedAfter	Only posts created on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD); stops walking older history.
postedBefore	Only posts created on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
maxItems	Stop after this many posts (default 500).
proxyConfiguration	Proxy settings; keep Apify proxy enabled.

An unknown handle costs one profile, not the run: the rest are delivered with an honest note in the run status.

Use it from your code

Run the actor and get posts straight back with one HTTP call (fine for scoped runs up to ~5 minutes):

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/lowlanddata~bluesky-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"authorHandles": "bsky.app", "maxItems": 100}'

Node.js:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('lowlanddata/bluesky-scraper').call({
  authorHandles: 'bsky.app, nasa.gov',
  maxItems: 200,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("lowlanddata/bluesky-scraper").call(
    run_input={"authorHandles": "bsky.app", "maxItems": 100})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Schedules, webhooks and the Make/Zapier/n8n integrations all work out of the box — this is a standard Apify actor.

Use it with AI agents (MCP)

Claude, Cursor and other MCP-capable agents can run this scraper as a tool through Apify's hosted MCP server: the agent fills in the handles itself, starts the run and reads the results — no glue code.

Claude Code:

$claude mcp add apify --transport http "https://mcp.apify.com?actors=lowlanddata/bluesky-scraper"

Cursor or Claude Desktop (add a custom connector / MCP server with this URL):

https://mcp.apify.com?actors=lowlanddata/bluesky-scraper

Sign in with your Apify account when prompted — runs are billed to it. Setup details per client: Apify MCP docs.

Prompts that work once connected:

• "Get the last 100 posts from bsky.app and summarize what they announced this month."
• "Fetch posts from these five news accounts on Bluesky and list everything about AI."
• "Compare posting frequency and engagement between two Bluesky accounts."

Is it legal to scrape Bluesky?

Bluesky is an open network by design: public posts are served openly by its AppView, without login. This scraper reads exactly that public surface. Author attribution stays as published — a post's handle is its byline — while everything beyond the published content (avatars, follower graphs, moderation labels, viewer state, DIDs outside the post identifier) is never collected. Requests are paced and no rate limits are evaded.

Why not scrape the big closed networks?

X, Instagram and TikTok wall their content behind logins, CAPTCHAs and bot-detection — scraping them means an arms race and terms-of-service violations. Bluesky is the social network that is actually open. If your monitoring can live where the data is public, this is the reliable, clean option.

How do I monitor Bluesky accounts?

Put your handles in authorHandles, cap maxItems, and add an hourly or daily Schedule in the Apify Console with an email/Slack integration on the runs — every new post lands in your inbox with engagement counts parsed. The AI-assistant prompt above walks a non-technical user through exactly this setup. Even tighter: set postedAfter to yesterday's date — the dataset then contains only the new posts.

FAQ

Can I search all of Bluesky by keyword? Not in v1 — Bluesky's search endpoint requires authentication; the open surface is profile feeds. Keyword filtering over your accounts' posts works by filtering the dataset.

Are reposts included? No — you get what the profile itself wrote. Replies are opt-in.

Can I get only the newest posts? Yes — set postedAfter to a date and each profile walk stops as soon as it reaches older posts; a daily watch collects exactly the new posts and nothing else.

How fresh is the data? Live at run time — every run queries the AppView directly. For continuous freshness, schedule the actor.

Can I export to Excel or CSV? Yes — every dataset exports as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML from the Apify Console or API.

Does it work with Make, Zapier or n8n? Yes — it is a standard Apify actor; all platform integrations, webhooks and schedules apply.

Can I archive a Bluesky account's posts? Yes — cursor pagination walks a profile's full history, post limits permitting. Set maxItems high enough and you get the account's output as one dataset.

Do I need a Bluesky account or API key? Neither. The AppView serves public posts without login, and that is the only surface this actor reads.

How do I scrape several Bluesky accounts in one run? List them comma-separated in authorHandles — "nasa.gov, bbc.com". The @ prefix is optional; custom domains and .bsky.social handles both work.

Does it collect followers, avatars or DIDs? No. You get the published posts of the handles you requested — no avatars, follower graphs, moderation labels or viewer state, and no DIDs beyond the post's own postUri identifier.

How do I track engagement on Bluesky posts? likeCount, repostCount, replyCount and quoteCount are captured at scrape time. Run the actor daily on the same handles and diff the snapshots to build a time series.

Can I pull posts from a specific date range? Yes — postedAfter and postedBefore accept YYYY-MM-DD dates. Feeds are newest-first, so postedAfter also stops the walk early instead of paging through old history.

What if one of my handles is misspelled? You lose that one profile, not the run — the remaining handles are delivered and the run status notes which profile was unreadable.

How much does Bluesky scraping cost here? $1.99 per 1,000 posts, metered on delivery. A 100-post daily watch is roughly $0.20; failed and empty runs are not charged.

Is there a per-run post limit? maxItems (default 500) is the only one you set. Free Apify plans cap runs at a 25-item sample.

Can I try it before spending anything? Yes — a free-plan run returns up to 25 real posts from your handles, enough to check the fields against your pipeline.

Are images and links in the output? Yes: imageUrls carries up to four full-size attached images, and external links arrive as linkUrl plus linkTitle.

Why scrape Bluesky instead of X or Instagram? Because Bluesky is open by design — no login walls, no CAPTCHA arms race, no terms-of-service tightrope. If your monitoring can live where data is public, this is the dependable option.

How do I tell replies from original posts? Replies are excluded by default; switch on includeReplies to get them, and each item's isReply flag tells you which is which. Reposts never appear — the dataset is what the profile itself wrote.

What is postUri and why keep it? It is the AT-protocol identifier of the post — stable even if the account changes its handle. url is the human-clickable link; use postUri as your primary key.

Can an AI agent fetch Bluesky posts through this? Yes — connect Apify's hosted MCP server and agents like Claude or Cursor can pick handles, run the actor and read the posts themselves. Setup is in the MCP section above.

Related scrapers

More clean-output data sources from the same maker:

• Kleinanzeigen.de Scraper — Germany's biggest classifieds site.
• Vinted Scraper — Europe's largest fashion resale marketplace.
• Rightmove Scraper — the UK's largest property portal.

Troubleshooting

The actor fails fast with the reason in the run's status message:

• "None of the requested profiles could be fetched." — check the handles; they look like name.bsky.social or a custom domain like nasa.gov.
• Some profiles noted as unreadable — those handles are wrong or the accounts are gone; the rest of the run is delivered normally.
• Fewer items than requested on a free plan — the 25-item free sample cap; run on a paid Apify plan for full results.

Support

Found an issue or missing a field you need? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab — reports get fixed, this actor is actively maintained.

Working well for you? A rating on this page takes ten seconds and helps other users find a reliable option — it is also the clearest signal of what we should build next.